


She Has Never Been Beautiful.

by spoilsofwar



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Character Death, F/M, Gen, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-27
Updated: 2015-01-27
Packaged: 2018-03-09 05:53:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3238742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spoilsofwar/pseuds/spoilsofwar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merope Gaunt lives in denial.</p>
            </blockquote>





	She Has Never Been Beautiful.

**O N E**

  
She has never been beautiful, but she has always known that. She knows that the only thing she truly has to offer is undying love and a family heirloom, a heritage. Her awareness is the reason she has taken to carrying the love potion in her pocket at all times. Sometimes, when she's only just given Tom the potion, he looks at her in a way that breaks her heart. She knows that he would never have looked at her twice without the potion, but when he takes her in his arms, Merope forgets all about that.  
  
The magic  _makes_  it real, and she can pretend. She is good at pretending, as she has been hiding for many years -- from her father, from her brother, from her peers, from the rest of Little Hangleton. Tom just gives her something to look forward to at the end of the day, and she works so hard to make him happy so that one day, when she stops giving him the potion, he might pity her for what she’s done to him. She’d always been told that pity was worse than no emotion at all, but Merope had never disagreed so much in her life.  
  
Every day, she resolves to wean him from the potion, and every day, she finds a million  _more_  things about him that she loves so dearly that she can’t bring herself to do it. She’s hopelessly addicted to the love she sees in his eyes.  
  
  


**T W O**

  
  
If she’s carrying his child, he can’t turn her away. He is too honourable, too noble to do such a thing. She is certain of it. She has watched him since he was young, and he could not have been faking it all this time.   
  
Merope has obviously been planning this for a while.  
  
It has been two months since  _her time_ , and Tom has slowly been taking less and less potion. Tonight marks twenty-four hours since his last dosing, and he has been resting in a sort of haze. When he wakes, she knows that she will have to explain. She has practiced over and over again, but never in front of a mirror. This one thing has taken her more courage than she’s ever had.   
  
  


**T H R E E**

  
  
She lies to herself often. She had been slipping him potions ever since her brother and father were sent to Azkaban, and, while she tried to live as a Muggle, she hadn’t truly succeeded. Behind his back, she used Heating Charms to warm his tea perfectly. She used dragon dung for fertilizer to make certain the plants grew  _just so_. She mixed strange concoctions to counter his headaches and fatigue, tempered to keep the unnatural taste at bay and then slipped into his evening tea.   
  
It was the  _magic_ , the  _heritage_  that drove Tom away. It was betrayal by potion, by  _pretending_  to be something she is not, that  _really_  drove him away. He never saw the real  _her_ , right? But maybe… Maybe it was  _really_  because she wasn’t living  _completely_  as a Muggle?  
  
But she can’t be a witch without him, knowing what she’s done. She knows that one way or another, she is doomed, and maybe that’s what she’d been praying for all along.  
  


**F O U R**

  
  
The streets of London are no place for a girl in 1926. It’s no place for a great deal of people, it would seem, with the strikes all across the London. Things and people that Merope had never heard of are on strike, and there are many violent clashes. The streets are littered with victims of all sorts.   
  
The street vendors are cautious these days. Merope watches the prettier of the desolate, most of whom are smiled at as they pass. Never mind the fact that most of them have quicker hands than a magician; they’ve already stolen an apple or bread without the caretaker even noticing.  
  
With her magic fizzling, Merope can barely keep herself standing, let alone attempt to procure anything. It's not that she's too noble to try; it's her contempt for the beautiful that keeps her from doing so. In her early days of living on the streets, a down-on-her-luck vaudevillian actress by the name of Victoria minded Merope because she felt sorry for her. But that soon came to an end when she caught Merope stealing from her. It was her beauty that Merope despised and she didn't feel any remorse about taking from her.  
  
However, Merope is not nearly as lucky with the street vendors. They narrow their eyes at the ugly girl, watching her every movement, but she never steals from them. Instead, now, she takes handouts from people who pity the girl with the ever-growing bulge. She overhears the more financially generous talking as they walk away.  
  
‘Must have been dark when she was knocked up. It’s no wonder she’s living on the streets.’  
  
 _Don’t listen to them. I may be ugly, but your father… He has such good genes, Tom_ , Merope tells the child in her womb. She’s already decided on a name, and he will be more brilliant than she could ever have dreamed. No child of Tom Riddle’s could be anything less than exceptional.   
  
Her magic disappears quickly. She can still see the Leaky Cauldron. She can still get into Diagon Alley, and when she does, people know who she is. There are former Hogwarts students there who recognize her, professors who smile and nod without looking her in the eye.   
  
It has been months since Tom left her, and she cannot go to Little Hangleton, not with Tom and Morfin there. If her brother knew what state she was in, he’d likely go to Riddle Manor and destroy every single last one of them, and Merope cannot stand the thought. If anything happened to Tom, she might go mad.  
  
Borgin and Burkes is dodgy, at best, but that shoppe is the only place she would consider selling to. The necklace has been with her for so long, and she has never once doubted its authenticity. However, Merope despises her Wizarding heritage. Every time she sees it around her neck, it reminds her of what she is, and what she can never be. She is not clueless, however, when he only offers her 10 galleons for the family heirloom. Merope chalks it up to just another disappointment in a long line of disappointments.  
  


**F I V E**

  
  
Merope has never been beautiful, but she has created beauty. She knows that the baby will grow up to be handsome, talented, and clever. All things that she had never been. He has his father’s perfect skin and intense eyes, and if the gods were ever tempted to be kind to Merope Gaunt, her son would have a long and happy life, making his mark in the world.  
  
Mrs Cole, the skinny woman who invited her in off the steps of the orphanage, is hovering over her. By her anxious expression, Merope knows that she is not much longer for this world. Her entire life has led to this moment, her precious son. Her time is nearly up, and, at last, she is proud of something that she has done. There is nothing more that Merope has to contribute.  
  
Perhaps Merope has known ever since the day she decided to stop giving Tom the potion that it would all culminate in this moment. But everything would be all right, she decided, Tom Marvolo Riddle would change the face of the Wizarding World.


End file.
